Sunday, December 22, 2013

I Feel Your Pain

Pop over to American Mercenary's blog for this thought. (Which leads, serendipitously to Tam's blog, and ultimately to the original germinal seed of this beanstalk.)

When dealing with the tsunamis of Internet Stupid, besides the helpful Demotivation poster that reminds us Internet arguments are like competing in the Special Olympics, two quotes by Albert Einstein definitely apply:

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

The biggest difficulty in communicating with people with both fingers in their ears repeating "Lalalalalala I can't hear you" is getting a laser to carve through their publicly-funded armor that blocks them from considering things rationally and factually, rather than an exercise in whose feelings are hurt, because Every Snowflake Is Special.

It's seldom worth the effort, unless you not only sway their opinion, but also somehow spark a small glowing appreciation of thinking which most of their developmental years were dedicated to ruthlessly stomping out.

We are rapidly becoming a nation not only of economic haves and have-nots, but of intellectual ones as well.

Societally, it's going to end in tears, and probably, almost inevitably, bloodshed.

Picture "The Walking Dead" as less documentary than metaphor.


The major differences now being that it's not actually legal to jam a crowbar into their faces, and that occasionally, once in a very great while, you can turn one back into an actual thinking breathing human being.

I'm a sentimental mushball for saying this, but I'm thinking that the ultimate cultural value of getting the occasional Dennis Miller, David Mamet, Bill Whittle, or Ronald Reagan back from the drooling, shambling horde of braindead bozos means it's still worth the effort to try and salvage a few more from the Sarlac Pit of Liberal Stupidity, and therefore not time to start welding concertina and metal spikes to the outside of your 4WD.

Yet.

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